


To fill an empty space

by Magnolie



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Classical Music, F/M, London, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnolie/pseuds/Magnolie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her heart had a hole she had no explanation for. Not until she heard him play the cello.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To fill an empty space

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my goodness, this turned out SO kitchy. First aid to all BotFA viewers really.  
> I am so sorry if you suffer from diabetis tomorrow, but hey, I needed something to get over this.

**To Fill An Empty Space**

 

When she had started playing the cello, she had barely been able to reach its far end and use her bow appropriately. The soft wood, the soothing sounds and the strange feeling of calmness had drawn her to it for her entire life. Ever since she had been 9 and first put up her long, red hair into a bun to play, she had not rested for a single day. She had taken the cello on every journey and even played it in the middle of the night if she had found no time during the day.

Cello tunes filled her ears every minute of the day. Her teachers had asked her to make it her profession, to study music, but she had not had the heart to do it. It hurt, as much as it healed her soul, like an addiction to fill and empty space.

So she had become a lawyer, moved to London, found a place to live and even started a relationship, but all that was secondary to what she did when she sat down in her music-room, in front of the tall windows and started playing. Her boyfriend felt no love for the ‘big violin’, he could not hear the melodies it made, the melodies she needed to breathe, to live, to go on.

The cello had filled a spot in her heart that had always hurt from the earliest age she could remember. It filled it, sealed it and then it ripped it all open again. As if something else had filled it in an earlier life, something far, far away from her now, something not even her cello could make up for.

“Tamara, will you please stop playing, it’s past three already,” Leonard touched her shoulder from behind and a silent tear ran down her cheek. Only moonlight lit the room.

“I’m not done yet,” she lightly sobbed.

“Tamara, you have all day tomorrow to play.”

She shook her head, but Leonard gently took the bow away from her.

“You need to go see someone.”

“I’m fine, I just…”

She weakly gave up, and he took the cello away from her, carefully putting it back into its case. She felt little when she lied down beside him on the bed and he hugged her from behind. She put a hand on his arm and was grateful when he fell asleep and let go of her. Her glance lingered on the cello and its wooden smell that had been familiar to her before she had even seen the instrument for the first time in her life. She felt safe, untouchable when she played, as if it was a weapon. Bow and arrow of some sort.

She had spent many nights wondering what made her feel the way she felt. Nobody grew that attached to an instrument; one of her teachers had once told her. If she was mourning someone, another had asked when she was twenty. Maybe she was.

As usual, sleep only came to her reluctantly. Upstairs, the thick woolen carpets swallowed the steps of the bartender that lived above her. She heard him anyway.

She had often tried to put her finger on what was missing, the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle she called her life. She had graduated from law-school as one of the best of her year, she worked in an international firm, specializing on clients claiming money from their insurance companies, she had a wonderful man in her life, whom she did not love, but who was willing to stand with her never the less. It was alright, one would guess, more than most could ask for. And it could have been far worse.

Waking up shortly after nine, she felt better. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but somehow the day looked promising. She made breakfast for both of them, even gave him a small kiss on his blonde hair before she left the apartment with her cello, heading for the music-school where she still took lessons once a week. It was a cold January-day, in fact the first weekend in the new year, but she embraced the cold, feeling content and light.

It was a good day. Yes, it truly was.

She found the school in the usual Saturday-commotion when she left the tube and walked up into the modern building. They usually hosted contests and bigger rehearsals on Saturday mornings, choir competitions and smaller, private concerts. In other rooms, there was just usual teaching going on: Piano lessons, violin lessons, singing and dancing.

Tamara walked up the stairs into the second floor, passing several ballet-classes until the familiar bright, empty corridor lay before her. Six doors on the right side, eight chairs in front of the windows on the left and a floor covered with light oak wood. She carefully placed her cello on one of the chairs and looked at her watch. She was nearly twenty minutes too early, but she was happy to wait.

She had only just sat down when something made her stir again.  
Normally, there were no other lessons before hers. Andrej drove in from Birmingham on Saturdays and did not take anyone before 11, but there was music coming out of one of the rooms, the very last one in fact, the one Tamara and Andrej rarely used for its terrible heating. At first, she tried to pay no attention to it, but then the playing grew louder and louder, more forceful and yet placid. Her eyes fell shut by themselves, her entire body relaxed at the soft cello sounds. Whoever was playing, his style was humbly beautiful. It had everything hers lacked, patience, endurance and optimism, but never seemed to become too eager to please. Something about it was rough, yet pervasive and piercing.

She could only guess for how long she simply sat in her chair, listening to the music until she carefully arose, following the tunes to the door they came from, only to find it standing slightly open. She never gave it a second thought, she was naturally curious, and his play touched her just so much and woke a kind of affection inside her, she did not know she was capable of. So she looked through the crack of the door, lightly touching the wall with her right hand, and saw him.

He had half long, dark hair and wore a dark blue hoodie above of a white shirt and dark jeans. It took a while until he lifted his head to such an extent that she could see his face, but even with his eyes closed, completely and fully concentrated on the music, it hit her like a hammer.

She sunk to the ground until her knees reached the floor; she never looked away from him. She couldn’t. She did not know where the set of memories that suddenly seemed to exist next to those of the past thirty years, came from, but it was there, he was there, so much of him: His heartwarming smile, his genuine laughter, his cheeky voice, his gentle touch.

_No. I watched you die._

Her world went spinning and she had to lean against the wall. Even if she had tried to stand up again, she would not have succeeded. The ground was shaking beneath her and tears quickly filled her eyes. She remembered his face, how his eyes had at last looked at her and how she would have endured every pain in the world to make him come back to live. She remembered how she had held him, kissed him and mourned him. How she had buried him beneath the stars and visited him until the world had turned.

And here she was, her heart as broken as the day he had died, the last piece of the puzzle, centuries later, yet again, full of love.

He must have heard her sobbing, or seen that the door was open and someone was moving behind it, because the playing stopped and she heard his steps approaching her. She barely managed to lift herself from the ground, but then he stood in front of her, still a few inches shorter than her, but as brilliant, and young and healthy as ever. It took him a mere second, a second that felt like another lifetime apart.

“No.”

It was less than a whisper when it left him.

“You can’t be her,” he breathed.

She covered her mouth with both of her hands, tears now running freely down her cheeks as he came closer and put both arms around her, hugging her carefully and burying his face in her hair while she wept and shook and cried. Her shaky hands found their way into his hair while she felt how he hugged her tighter and mumbled something she didn’t understand, but didn’t have to, because she felt how he held on to her as if he was never going to let go again, and that was all she cared about.

“I watched you die,” she repeated over and over again, sobbing, salty tears filling her mouth, “I buried you.”

She felt how he carefully looked up to her and smiled, “I know,” he whispered and brushed a strand of her red hair behind her ear, “I didn’t dare thinking I would ever see you again.”

And then he just kissed her and she forgot to sob or to breathe or to move. Her knees were shaking when she clung to him, never ready to ever let him go again.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered, resting his forehead against her mouth, “I never even knew I did.”

She nodded and caressed his back, closing her eyes again and taking in his familiar scent.

Later, when Andrej made them play together, it was with an easiness and lightness she had never felt before. They stole secret glances, sitting opposite, yet playing the same soft tunes in harmony. The cellist only observed them frowning.

“Curious. I was sure you would work nice, but I did not believe we would come this far in one morning,” Andrej observed in his heavy, Russian accent when they were all done and he had not much else to say. Tamara had never seen him speechless; he normally always had a few quips and remarks up his sleeve. “My secret, little star and the rough diamond from the Highlands … one should think they ought to make a movie about it,” he rolled his eyes.

“The Highlands?” She smiled and looked over to Kili.

“Born and raised in Inverness,” he grinned. And there it was again, his cheekiness, his optimism, all the beauty she loved so much about him, had loved and missed her entire life yet never… never been able to fully grasp and understand.

“As for the music, to me, it sounds like you two were made for each other,” Andrej randomly mumbled, audibly closing his folder, “Killian, I want you to rehearse with her at least once a week in addition to your usual schedule, will you?” He pushed his glasses up his nose, “she might also be able to help finding you a flat.”

“You are moving here?” She did not even try to hide her excitement.

He shrugged and smiled.

“Killian will join the London Symphony Orchestra next March if his uncle will let him,” Andrej gave one more warning glace to Kili before he started packing up, apparently the statement had a back story.

She couldn’t help but laugh, not now, not when they had dinner together and still not when they lay next to each other on the bed, foreheads touching and bodies intertwined until there was no end and no beginning.

It was just like the first night they had ever spent next to each other, only this time no bars or duties were separating them.

 


End file.
